


i still pick up at the sound of your call

by edelwoodsouls



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doctor/Companion Friendship, Episode: Revolution of the Daleks, Fix-It, Gen, Phone Call, re: no one remembers aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28499607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edelwoodsouls/pseuds/edelwoodsouls
Summary: "Is that a dalek on tv?"[or: Martha has some choice questions for the Doctor regarding the new Prime Minister's addess]
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Martha Jones, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan (implied)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 124





	i still pick up at the sound of your call

**Author's Note:**

> someone tagged [my post](https://edelwoodsouls.tumblr.com/post/639160040807333888/martha-and-mickey-happily-married-lounging-on) with something like "martha calls the doctor and just goes: oi what the fuck" and my hand slipped (i can't find who it was i'm sorry!!)  
> kudos also to [@comicsandmayhem](https://comics-and-mayhem.tumblr.com/) for inspiring the tumblr post in the first place!

"Oi, what the _fuck_ is going on?"

The Doctor blinks. Pulls the phone away from her ear, to check the number again, check she isn't hallucinating. She'd hardly believed it when she saw it, hasn't seen those numbers strung together in years, though they're still burned into her mind.

Another life, another time.

Another friend burned to ashes.

She hesitates, for just a moment. Takes a deep breath. "Hey, Martha," she cringes instantly at the hollow lightness of her tone, only drawing attention to the lifetimes between their last words. "What's up?"

A heavy pause on the other end. The Doctor tries to imagine her old companion, for just a moment. She'd promised herself she would check up on her friends from time to time, make sure they were okay, if she could help them from the shadows in any way - but that promise has fallen between the cracks, lost along the way with everything she ever thought was true.

The last time she saw Martha, she saved her life. Moments before her own - his own, back then - had slipped between her fingers.

She'd looked happy. The Doctor could never have predicted Martha and _Mickey_ of all people, but she was glad for them. She had ruined their lives in so many ways by crashing through them, by falling in love with Rose - this was the least they deserved.

So she imagines Martha like that. Curled up on the sofa, cornrowed hair and sparkling eyes. Legs tangled up with Mickey as they watch tv in the burnt orange glow of a dying London afternoon.

Oh, _fuck._ The tv.

"Uh, hi," Martha answers finally, wrong-footed and uncertain. "I wanted to speak to the Doctor, could you put him on, please? Sorry, I- uh, I'm Martha. Jones. I used to travel with him. I'm guessing you're the new companion? What happened to Donna?"

An unexpected lump rises in the Doctor's throat. Thousands of years - _thousands_ \- have passed since she last bothered to check in on Martha Jones. How many companions have been and gone in that time? How many have crumbled to ash beneath her fingers?

She swallows it down, files it under _Compartmentalise, and Never Think of_ _Again_.

Sunshine. Enthusiasm. Energy. The tenets she's founded herself on this go around. She plasters a bright smile on her face, as if contorting her muscles will trick her tone into believing she means it.

"Just me, I'm afraid," she grins, skipping around the TARDIS to fiddle with the controls to keep her hands busy. "Had a bit of a change of face since you last saw me."

Furious whispers on the other side of the phone, far enough away from the receiver that even she can't hear them. She imagines Martha and Mickey, confusion and surprise warring with each other.

This reveal never gets old.

"Sooo, how've you been? How's Mickey? It's been, what, nearly ten years since you last saw me?"

"Uh, yeah," Martha returns to the phone, hesitant. She's never had to deal with regeneration, really. "I didn't know you could- I mean, when you said you _change_ , I didn't realise that-"

"I can be anything I like! It's great, innit? I could have two heads or green skin if I felt like it. First time I've been a woman, though. Well, first time I remember, I guess. Still haven't been ginger, though. Maybe one day."

"Different face, same amount of energy," Martha laughs, and the sound lifts a weight from the Doctor's chest she didn't even know was there. "Mickey says hi."

"Yeah- hi!" A more distant voice echoes through the phone, startled at being addressed.

"Hi! It's great to hear from you!" She twirls the phone cord around a finger. If there's one thing she always regrets in her lives, it's the way her previous selves treated their companions. Each one with a different idea of relationships, of how things should be done.

This version of her thinks Mickey would be a _great_ companion, if not for her Rose-tinted blinders.

"So, to what do I owe this call? Hope you kids have been keeping out of trouble, though _somehow_ , I doubt it."

"Right!" Martha yelps. The whole regeneration thing definitely threw her for a loop. "Yeah, Doctor, what the _fuck_ is going on? Is that a _dalek_ we just saw on tv?"

"Ah, yeah... it is, yeah."

"And?"

"And I'm sorting it out?" The Doctor glances over her shoulder, towards the corridor the fam disappeared down a few minutes ago to get ready. They'll be back any second.

It's not that the Doctor doesn't want the fam to know about her old companions. They've met Jack, know she hasn't been on her own all this time, but- still.

Her companions don't have the best survival rate. It's selfish, probably, to keep having them, and yet she somehow never goes without them for long.

(She's lonely, she knows it. She's not a good person on her own. She clings to these fragments of knowledge and calls it reason.)

"But _why_ is there a dalek on tv, Doctor? New security drones, that's what they're saying. Do they not remember the whole Earth-moving, twenty-seven planets, dalek invasion thing?"

"Or the Battle of Canary Wharf?" Mickey adds, words heavy with an underlying anger. Rose was lost to save the world from daleks, after all.

The least she deserves is to have her sacrifice remembered.

"I'm not sure, to be honest," the Doctor admits, flinging herself onto one of the crystalline seats near the console. "It's incredibly weird, actually. As far as I can tell, the entire human race has forgotten that aliens exist at all. No stolen Earth, no Titanic flying over London or Racnoss star at Christmas. No Battle of Canary Wharf."

"That's- I mean, how does that even happen?"

"I have no idea. Something to do with collective consciousness, I'd guess. Some manipulation from another race wanting to remove Earth's knowledge and wariness of aliens. The Arkangel network is still flying strong in your orbit, after all. It wouldn't be so hard to harness the technology. Maybe even your own governments, or some rogue branch of Torchwood. I never did find Torchwood 2 or 4."

"Then how the hell do we still remember?"

"Probably my fault. You're still keyed into the TARDIS's neural network, so she's protecting you from the effects. Sorry about that."

"No, it's- it's good," Martha splutters. "Are you going to try and fix it?"

"Maybe," the Doctor leans back in her chair, pulling the phone cord as far as it will go. "Once all of this is over, I might look into it. Just to check if it's malevolent or not. It's not a bad thing, necessarily. To forget. Some of things they must have seen..."

She shakes her head to clear it. Can't let herself stop and think for too long, or she might never escape the whirlpool's tide.

"Anyway," Martha says - she always was good at noticing her spirals, circumventing them. "How's Donna?"

Nevermind. She speaks the words lightly, but in a tone that says she noticed the Doctor's avoidance earlier and is bracing for bad news.

"She's great!" the Doctor manages a smile, glad to have something, anything to latch onto that isn't her own thoughts. "Happily married, actually. Won the lottery a few years ago, doing very well for herself."

"That's- that's really good to hear."

"She doesn't remember me." She lets the words fall, as much as she wishes she could hold them close and buried and gone. But Donna needs to be kept safe, and Martha reaching out to her would be- not good. "She doesn't remember anything that happened. I- I had to wipe her memory, after the daleks. It was killing her."

The silence stretches longer this time, and for a moment the Doctor is sure she's broken everything.

"Well, I'm glad she's happy," Martha says eventually. "There are worse fates, right?"

 _So many of your companions have had worse fates_ , she doesn't say, but the Doctor reads between the lines anyway.

"Yeah," she breathes.

"And how are you doing, Doctor? You're not alone, are you?"

"No! I'm great, actually. Got my fam. Yaz is really cool, you'd love her. Ryan and Graham are great. Jack's back in town right now, helped me out of prison-"

"Helped you out of _where_?"

"-and we're just sorting out this whole dalek thing! Should be all over pretty soon. Just, stay where you are."

"You know we can't do that, Doctor." If anything, Martha sounds _amused_. Determined. Ready to pick up her sword once again, defend the Earth from whatever might be coming.

In this second, everything is right with the world, and she misses Martha Jones in a way that hurts both her hearts at once.

"Well, stay safe at least. I'll call you back when this is done, to let you know."

"Thank you, Doctor. Maybe we could, I don't know- grab a drink, or something. Catch up."

"I'd like that," she replies, and they both know she has very little intent on following through.

Yaz appears at the end of the corridor, eyes bright, smile warm. She's chattering to someone, probably Ryan, completely oblivious, no weight on her shoulders.

The Doctor wishes she could keep Yaz like that, happy, _delighted_ , laughing. Wishes that smile was just for her.

But she might have ruined it forever.

She's learnt to trust the TARDIS over the years, learnt that the TARDIS arrives when she thinks the Doctor _should_ be rather than where the Doctor _wants_ to be. She wants to trust that this, too, was for a good reason. The TARDIS has never led her wrong, in the end.

She has to believe.

"Well, I'll let you crazy kids go be heroes. Beat up some daleks for me, will you?"

"Of course, Doctor," Martha says. The Doctor imagines her smiling, linking fingers with Mickey. "Stay safe out there."

"Always," the Doctor grins. As Yaz and Ryan approach, she jumps up, throws the phone back on its hook and grabs hold of the TARDIS's controls.

"Who was that?" Yaz asks, wary, unsure of how to act around her. They need to sit down and talk, hash out the last ten months - and nineteen years - but now isn't the time.

Unfortunately, the time rarely seems to appear.

"Just an old friend checking in," the Doctor shrugs, avoiding her new companions' eyes. "There's daleks on the tv, haven't you heard? Let's fix that."

She throws the TARDIS into flight with a delighted whoop - after all these years, the thrill of flight never quite fades.

She's lost companions before, but as Martha’s call has reminded her, not all of them have met bad ends.

She refuses to let the fam down on that one, too.

**Author's Note:**

> did i start shipping martha and thirteen as i wrote this story? maybe. do i regret anything? absolutely not.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!! find me on tumblr [@edelwoodsouls](https://edelwoodsouls.tumblr.com)


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